Anne Geggis
A movement to end the last remaining municipal and public housing restrictions against specific dog breeds — mostly targeting pit bulls — is on the brink of catching the metaphorical car.
Senate legislation (SB 942) that would overturn Miami’s prohibition on pit bulls unanimously won a third Senate committee approval. And identical legislation (HB 941) awaits a full House vote.
Sen. Alexis Calatayud told the Senate Rules Committee that the justifications for breed restrictions haven’t held up.
“Breed restrictions are antiquated attempts to reduce liability in a community,” the Miami Republican said during Wednesday’s hearing. “Studies conducted by the National Canine Research Council and the Centers for Disease Control acknowledge that breed is not a determining factor in the likelihood of a dog to bite and that breed-specific legislation is not a useful tool for keeping communities safe.”
Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera, a Miami Republican, has proposed an identical bill in the House.
Previous legislation banning breed-specific municipal ordinances had allowed local ordinances passed before Oct. 1, 1990 to stand, which was right after Miami passed its ordinance.
Dahlia Canes, of the Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation, has been working on getting ordinances like Miami-Dade’s overturned for the last 19 years. Now, Miami-Dade’s 1990 ordinance is rarely enforced, but it does keep families from moving into public housing with four-legged family members, according to Canes.
If the bill passes “a lot more people won’t have to return their dogs to the shelter or dump them on the street,” Canes said. “People can go with their four-legged family members into public housing.”
The city of Sunrise’s ordinance would not be allowed, either. Those rules, passed in 1989, define “pit bull dogs” as any dog that has characteristics as described by the American Kennel Club or United Kennel Club for American Staffordshire terriers or Staffordshire bull terriers. And those dogs, according to Sunrise’s rules, must be securely locked in a pen or muzzled.
Canes is hopeful this will be the year that laws acknowledge dogs should not be judged by breed, but by behavior.
“Hopefully, the legislators realize this is not a political issue,” she said. “This should be a humane, bipartisan effort,” Canes said.
5 comments
Billy the Bamboozler McDivorced Thrice
April 5, 2023 at 3:53 pm
Where is the Tea Party on this one? Banning books, banning dogs, banning social studies… what happened to freedom and liberty?
Traitors Eating Ass Party
April 5, 2023 at 4:15 pm
The Tea Party were only mad because the president at the time was black. They were a one issue party in that sense.
Most of them ran off to join the Klan once Trump made racism ok again.
Billy the Bamboozler McBuzzard
April 5, 2023 at 8:16 pm
Now they are busy encouraging the next Timothy McVeigh. They are mad about Trump’s fk ups and blaming everyone else.. whipping up suicide bombers.
JD
April 5, 2023 at 4:00 pm
Seriously? Is the shameful FLGOP is running out of things to ban from banning? Now it’s you-can-have-genetically-modified-dog-breeds-that-will-eat-your-face-if-it-owns-the-libs legislation? Pathetic.
The only people that want pit bulls are drug dealers and militia… oh wait, now I see the connection.
Biscuit
April 6, 2023 at 11:15 am
“…breed is not a determining factor in the likelihood of a dog to bite…”
Sure, pit bulls don’t bite as often as golden retrievers, but when they do bite they tear out your throat. The human fatality rate is the issue here, not whether or not other dogs bite.
As a dog, I know from whence I speak. For example, I want to bite just one person, and only on the ankle: DeSantis.
Comments are closed.